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The government says that 240,000 new homes a year are needed in England, but it’s a lie, says Alexander Waugh, evidenced by every estate agent’s window in the country. This policy means
that government and developers win, while communities and the country lose
How do you describe your sexual orientation? Please tick: Bisexual, Gay, Heterosexual, Lesbian? Do you identify yourself as transgender? Yes? No? If yes, are you a male-to-female tranny, or a
female-to-male one?
Why, I wonder, was Roger Mitchinson, a planning officer from the Taunton Deane Borough Council, last week seeking answers to these impudent questions from the inhabitants of Milverton, when his
stated aim in coming to their beautiful Somerset village, was to ‘consult’ them on a scheme to erect a vast Toyland housing estate on a field of Grade 1 agricultural land overlooking
the main street? Does a planning consultation need to incorporate this sort of filth? The official answer to that question is this: ‘Taunton Deane Borough Council has a policy to monitor
attendance at events to ensure we reach the diverse communities that we aim to serve.

It didn’t take long for the people of West Sussex to work out that inserting the word ‘eco’ before ‘town’ in order to promote a new development was no more than greenwash.It didn’t take long for the people of West Sussex to work out that inserting the word ‘eco’ before ‘town’ in order to promote a new development was no more than greenwash. Developers had been trying to build on greenfield land near the historic town of Arundel for some time, so when Brown began to mention ‘eco-towns’ they seized on the idea.

One thing Britain does not need is more pylons. There are already legions of the metallic monsters stomping across our fields and hills — 22,000 of them in total — and 550 of these have colonised some of the loveliest countryside in Britain: across the Peak District; through the New Forest and the South Downs; along the North Wales coast. We should be dismantling these lines, as suggested by the excellent Campaign to Protect Rural England.

It seemed a classic diplomatic faux pas — the sort that begins in mutual embarrassment and soon descends into ominous bristling and then open recrimination. On 9 March, Vice President Joseph Biden, in Jerusalem on a mission to revive peace talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinians, made the expected pledge of ongoing American commitment to Israel’s security, only to be upstaged hours later when Israel’s interior minister, Eli Yishai, announced the construction of 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem, an ancestrally contentious zone.

Piers Morgan talks to Freddy Gray about interviewing Gordon Brown, his horror at the prospect of a Tory government, and why he’s tempted to move into politicsPiers Morgan comes across on television as the consummate new Briton: boorish yet charming, vulgar yet strangely elitist, at once chauvinist and cosmopolitan — an archetype of the Blair era.In person, he’s much the same. We meet in a pub, at his suggestion, and he orders a latte.

Disgraced politicians should not be relentlessly persecuted, says Rod Liddle. We should address the problem of MPs’ expenses by raising their salaries insteadI felt a little ashamed watching the Westminster Three — Elliot Morley, Jim Devine and David Chaytor — herded into a magistrates court to face charges of defrauding the taxpayer with their MPs expenses claims. Outside the court there were the usual maniacs howling at them, or grunting like pigs — one man even wore a pig’s head to drive home the point more forcefully.